Sparks of Darkness, Pools of Light
by R.W. plus me
Summary: It was the simplicity of it that they all needed. Something controllable that needed little thought, though routinely needed to be done.
1. I

I.

"Tell me something," she says. You look up from the mug of tea she's just handed you, surprised by the suddenness and directness.

"What?" you ask, always a step behind. She smiles encouragingly. That wonderful smile that warms you more than the fires she creates in the jam jars.

"Tell me something about yourself. Something I don't know," she says, bringing the tea closer to her face, tilting her head and looking at you, and for a moment you've lost all words.

"Y-you know everything," you say, still shaken by this girl in front of you.

She laughs. "I don't know everything. It's impossible to know everything."

_Yes_, you think to yourself. _Clearly, she can't know everything. She doesn't know what goes through your mind when you look at her, she doesn't know that you want to kiss her right now. She doesn't know that what you want more than anything in the world is to keep her safe._

"Okay," you say slowly, wondering what you should let bubble to the surface. You're scared that if you tell her one thing, the rest won't be able to stay hidden and pretty soon you'll be telling her everything you've ever thought about her. And then you'll ruin everything and scare her away because you won't be able to keep anything in. She has that affect on you.

She looks at you expectantly, her large brown eyes focused on nothing but you, and you marvel at the perfection of this moment.

"My first memory is sitting in the shed with my dad," you say, looking down at the tea in your hands instead of looking into her face. "He was trying to fix a radio; it took him all summer because he didn't really understand how they worked. He tried to get us all to help him fix it, spend time with us, I don't know. No one wanted to do it because the shed was hot and it was summer and it was more fun to be outside playing Quidditch than stuck in the old shed listening to dad rattle on about mad Muggle inventions," you say. You're rambling, but you know she'll understand.

"But you stayed with him?" she asks softly.

You nod, still not meeting her eyes. "I sat on the worktable while he worked on the radio, and for the whole summer, all of his attention went to me. It was like there wasn't anyone else, it was just us, fixing that broken old radio," you say, smiling. You look up, and she has tears in her eyes.

"Did you fix it? Did you fix the radio?" she asks, staring unblinkingly at you, so deep you feel raw and open because you know she's seeing something else.

You glance at the radio on the kitchen table, which emits static and the odd word or phrase. It doesn't work properly, but in a sense it _does_. It brings hope, it brings something that they all need to find in their dark little tent.

You smile. "Yes," you say. "It works perfectly."


	2. II

II.

She didn't know when the habit started, possibly the night that they first stayed in the tent, when she was so scared of losing him for the first time that she couldn't bring herself to tear her eyes from his face. She thinks that maybe the habit started that very first night.

And every night since that first night, she finds that right before she drifts off to sleep, in the tiny space between the two camp beds, they turn towards each other, facing one another. Even if she's been tossing and turning for hours, trying to find a comfortable position on the hard, lumpy pillow, or he's been moaning and shifting, cradling his shoulder in a sling. Somehow, right before sleep, they find one another. Curiously, seeing his face just before sleep takes over is comforting: it chases the nightmares away and she finds that she wakes up in the morning with the ghost of a smile on her lips.

They don't talk about it in the morning, but it's a ritual anyway. For a second, maybe less, they share a moment of absolute contented silence, where they look sleepily at each other and realize that perhaps it's possible to find something good in all of this horror and hurt.

Her first night without him, the night he leaves, she forgets. And after crying into her pillowed, biting down hard on the blanket to muffle the sounds of her tears from Harry who's sitting outside the tent, she turns to the other camp bed. For a moment, a split second, she forgets why she's been crying. She forgets that when she turns to see him, her eyes heavy from all of her tears and sleep skirting at the edges of her vision, that he won't be there. She looks at his empty bed, at the place where his head should be, and feels empty.

That night, she forces herself to turn toward the opposite wall because the last thing she sees will not be his eyes; it will be the canvas in front of her. But in the morning, she's curled toward his stripped bed, her back to the canvas behind her, facing the empty space he's left. For weeks after this, she falls asleep facing away from his bed, yet wakes up facing where he should be.

One morning, she wakes up and she's not staring at an empty bed. She's staring at the canvas she fell asleep to. Her body is not curled towards where he would be. And as she looks at the wall in front of her eyes, she cries harder than she's ever cried in her life.


	3. III

III.

It isn't a flower. It's probably a weed. He doesn't know anything about gardening; gardening is for girls after all. But he does know that this isn't the type of flower you'd go to the store and buy a dozen of. It's the kind of flower you'd pull out of the garden so it doesn't grow back.

But it's purple. And it's bright. And it's _alive_. And that alone makes it valuable, more valuable than anything else he has. And although he knows she deserves more – _a lot_ more – it doesn't stop him from stopping short on his hunt for mushrooms and picking the flower carefully. He looks around cautiously to make sure that she isn't watching him, because that would ruin the surprise.

He finds her sitting on a rock, a few feet away from the mouth of the tent. She's staring off into the distance, looking at something he can't quite find. Harry is about twenty feet away, stooping over and looking for mushrooms amongst the fallen leaves. He sits down next to her, and she jumps a little, turning to look at him. He can't read her expression.

"Are you okay?" he asks, concern creasing his brow as he stares at her. She tries to rearrange her face into a smile, but it falls short of her eyes.

"Yes," she says, looking at her abandoned basket at her feet. It's nearly empty.

"What were you thinking about?" he asks, and she doesn't even need to ask how he knows; it goes unsaid between them.

She shakes her head. "Nothing, it was stupid. Pointless, really," she says, shaking her head again as if trying to rid herself of a lingering thought.

But he knows; he knows what's troubling her. He's known since this morning, how she was distant at breakfast and why she hasn't said much all day.

"Happy birthday, Hermione," he says, and she looks up at him. He knows that this is what she's been thinking of. He knows that she's surprised that he's been able to keep track of the days. He knows that she was expecting them to forget about it, because it's what she's been attempting to do all day.

"You remembered," she said softly, smiling at him and making his whole body feel warm. He reaches into his pocket and holds the flower out to her. She takes it, her eyes wide with awe and…happiness?

"Er…" he says awkwardly, not knowing what he's supposed to say after giving her such an inadequate gift. But she saves him the trouble from saying anything: she throws herself into his arms, burying her face in his neck and squeezing him tightly.

"Thank you," she whispers, her breath tickling the shell of his ear in a very pleasant way. When she pulls away from him, both pink in the face, she looks at him as if he has just given her the world.

He vows that one day he will.


	4. IV

IV.

At first she thinks she's still sleeping. Because this can't be real, he can't be standing there right in front of her. She wants to reach out and touch his face, make sure that he isn't a mirage or a manifestation of her dreams. She doesn't know why he's soaking wet, his hair plastered to his forehead, or why he's holding the sword of Gryffindor, or even how he found it.

But none of that seems to matter. All she knows is that he is standing less than ten feet away from her, and suddenly a whole flood of emotions hit her at once, and she feels as if she's suffocating.

She's _angry_. She's angry at him for leaving her. For disappearing in the rain as she called after him, grabbing his hand and pleading for him to stay. She's angry that he looked straight into her eyes and then Disapparated, leaving her standing there alone.

The overwhelming anger that she's felt for weeks and weeks rushes up inside her and makes her shake with rage. She trusted him. She thought he was the only thing she could depend on. He promised he's never leave. He abandoned her in a time and a place when she needed him most.

And she knows that some of this anger is her fault. Because even though she wants to scream at him until her voice is gone, she feels something else too. When she looks at him she feels exactly how she's felt for years now. The anger is pushed aside by the feeling in her chest, the feeling that takes all of her breath and makes her heart beat faster and her pulse run quickly and her fingers feel numb.

Because even now, even after everything he's done, she loves him.

And no matter how angry she is at him she loves him a little bit more. It's stronger. And she's happy. Happier than she can remember feeling in so long. Because he's here, he's alive, he's okay. She thought she'd die before she saw him again. But he's looking right at her, his face slightly apprehensive yet shining with joy and she knows that he's thinking exactly the same thing.

But she's strong. And she's hardened. He's made her like that. This year has made her like that.

So she doesn't throw herself into his arms and cling to him and cry with happiness. She attacks him, punching every bit of him she can get to and ignoring the electrifying feeling in her chest when her skin touches his. Though it's a tiny sound, almost impossible to hear, she thinks she hears him laugh softly under his breath, his happiness leaking through his shock and determination. Because he's back and he sees her and he knows she's okay.


	5. V

V.

You know something's gone wrong. You know before your knees hit the leaf-strewn floor of the woods that something isn't right. Then you look to the right, where his hand is still in yours, and your heart falls to the ground.

It's everywhere. Shockingly red blood. You forget how to breathe as you pick yourself up and kneel in front of him, your hands dancing around the wound that you've made. Through the shock and the fear you feel guilt.

His eyes are wide and wild, his face grey and his jaw clenched in pain. But he refuses to say anything, just whimper through tightly pursed lips as he writhes with the pain. You marvel at his bravery and want to take some of it from him. You find his hand again and squeeze it tightly. His eyes flicker, squeezing your hand back with impossible strength.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay," you whisper in his ear over and over again, wondering who you're trying to convince now.

You shout something incomprehensible at Harry, tears threatening to leak out of the corners of your eyes. But you hold them back. They can't blind you. You need to fix him, you need to heal him. Harry hands the potion you've asked for and you pour it over the wound, watching as the deep cuts slowly start to heal themselves. He's fainted now, his face too white, his lips paler than his skin. The bleeding has stopped and you pick up your wand from where is was thrown aside when you saw him. Muttering words under your breath, you clean up the blood that has caked his shirt and skin.

"Is he alright?" Harry asks from somewhere above you, and you say something back, though words aren't registering properly. All you can do is look at him lying there, his chest rising and falling shallowly and unevenly, his shoulder pink from where the healed skin will grow.

His eyes flutter open, and they focus on your face. He licks his lips and clears his throat, his face still white. He attempts to sit up and you put a hand on his other shoulder, supporting him as he rests slightly on you, still too weak to do it on his own.

"Ron," you whisper, because it's all you can manage and you don't think you could remember any other words.

"W-where are we?" he asks in a cracked voice, his eyes still slightly unfocused as he surveys the forest around them.

"I h-had to b-bring us here," you say through tears that are falling down your cheeks. "Y-you g-got splinched s-so I f-fixed you," you say. He blinks again, his eyes focusing on your face and your heart stops again.

He sways dangerously, his face turning grey and you move so that he's leaning more fully on you. He closes his eyes in pain and tilts his head back onto your shoulder and you move his hair back from his forehead.

You almost lost him.


	6. VI

VI.

He wakes up early the morning after Hermione comes to the Burrow after sending her parents to Australia. He doesn't know what has woken him up, but it feels as though he's set an alarm, all vestiges of sleep are erased completely. He untangles his long legs from the blankets twisted around his waist and goes to the window near the foot of his bed. It's early; the fog hasn't risen over the grass and the sun is just starting to peek through the trees at the edge of the garden. He wonders what possessed him to wake up this early. He's a notorious late riser; he hasn't seen the morning since he turned thirteen.

And then he sees her: standing near the edge of the garden, her brown curly head visible even from Ron's attic bedroom. He watches her for a moment before coming to his senses and looking around wildly for a shirt to throw on. At last he knows why he's awake.

When he reaches the gate, she's still there, and he can see that her shoulders are shaking. Over the hum of the bees and birds in the garden, he can hear her crying. She stiffens as he gets closer, he wonders if she knew he was coming all along.

She turns to him as he steps up beside her, tear tracks glistening on her face, her eyes glassy. Her nose is pink and her hair is everywhere. She's beautiful. She doesn't try and hide her face from him, and he's glad. They stare at each other for a moment, unsure of what to do. He doesn't know what to say to her. And then she lets out a sob he knows she's been holding in and collapses into his chest.

Shakily, he puts his arms around her, feeling her tears soak his shirt. He's not used to this much contact with Hermione, usually whenever she needs comforting she goes to Ginny, because he oddly seems to freeze every time she starts crying. But something's changed; he could feel it in June at Dumbledore's funeral when she cried on his shoulder. He's not frozen anymore. And, actually, holding her feels nice. He gently rests his chin on the top of her head, thinking that she fits perfectly. Her head is close to his heart, and for a moment he worries that she'll be able to hear it pounding loudly. Because it seems to do that every time he's near her, every time he touches her, every time he hears her name, even. He holds her tightly, making soft and soothing calming noises in the back of her throat as she cries.

"It's going to be okay," he says in a low, gravelly voice.

He wishes he could believe that.


	7. VII

VII.

It's not a good night in the tent. Tempers are short and there are long, dire silences. Harry, who's wearing the locket, isn't speaking to Hermione out of annoyance, and Ron, in an attempt to take Hermione's side, is therefore not speaking to Harry. The tiny tent feels uncomfortably small with the three of them avoiding eye contact and pointedly glaring at one another when the object of their anger isn't looking.

Hermione is sitting cross legged on one of the camp beds, a book in her lap that she's not even attempting to pretend to read. Harry is sitting in the sitting room, flipping violently though an old Quidditch magazine of Ron's. And Ron is on the camp bed next to Hermione, stirring his tea and throwing Harry dirty looks, unaware that there isn't any tea left in his cup.

Ron glances at Hermione, and she looks up in time to catch his expression. Their whispered conversation earlier that day in the woods under the pretext of getting water from the river echoes in her head, Ron's words standing out clearly: "He hasn't got a clue what he's doing. We have to talk to him."

_Do you want to start the conversation with him, or should I?_ Ron asks with a significant look in Harry's direction, then back at Hermione.

_Not now, not when he's like this,_ she says with a shake of her head.

_He's _always_ like this,_ Ron says with a roll of his eyes.

_That's unfair. He's wearing the locket and none of us have had dinner_, Hermione says with a reproachful look. Ron has the decency to blush slightly.

_Fine. But I'm saying something to him. He shouldn't have yelled at you earlier,_ Ron says with a glance at Harry's neck and then back at her.

Hermione hides a smile at his attempt to protect her honor. _Honestly, there's no need. It's the locket, I know he didn't mean it,_ she says with a look.

Ron rolls his eyes and shakes his head. _Fine, make an excuse for him._

"Listen," Harry says loudly, and the two jump as his voice breaks into their wordless conversation. "If you two would like to talk about me, fine, I'll go outside then. But I'm not sitting here pretending that you two aren't having one of your silent conversations behind my back again. I can tell when you're doing it, you know," he says angrily, and he picks up his magazine and walks out of the tent, tugging at the locket around his neck. Hermione lets out the breath she's been holding and glances at Ron again, a reflex.

_We should have just said something_, he says with a shake of his head.

_Shut up_, she says, rolling her eyes and nudging his arm with her elbow.


	8. VIII

VIII.

"Okay, your turn," he says, taking his eyes off the radio and fixing them on you. You feel the familiar butterflies in your stomach every time he looks at you; no matter how hard you try and ignore them or pretend they aren't there, you can't escape it.

"What do you mean, 'my turn'?" you ask, avoiding what you know he's going to ask you. You take a sip of still-too-hot-to-drink tea just for something to do and grimace as you burn your mouth in the process. You're stalling for time.

"Your turn to tell me something I don't know," he says, grinning at you. Butterflies. You look frantically around the tent, searching for something to say. Or, searching for something _not_ to say. Because there's so much you'd like to tell him, if only you had the courage to tell him.

_Sometimes when you smile at me I forget how to breathe, and I think that I must be mad to think that you could ever…that we could…but then sometimes I catch you staring at me and it seems as if you…but then it's only for a moment so I'm not certain that it's real…and then sometimes you put your arm around me and I feel like…and I wonder if you feel it too because sometimes I can feel how fast your heart is beating…and sometimes when you take my hand and squeeze it I feel your hand shaking in mine and I want to…and when you look at me sometimes something in your face changes and I think you want to kiss…and I really, really want to kiss you too but…_

"Hermione?" he says, and you look up, startled, wondering how long you've retreated into your own mind, and if he noticed. He raises an eyebrow and you blush in spite of yourself.

"Sorry," you mutter, thinking of something to say, because you know you can't say any of the things that just crossed your mind. Something safe, you need to find something safe to tell him. You glance at the radio he was just staring at, and you have an idea.

"My first memory," you say slowly. "I can remember watching Princess Diana's wedding on the television, I was three years old," you say. There, that's something safe.

"Three? That's impressive," he says, taking a sip of the tea you've made him. Dark, with three cubes of sugar, disgustingly sweet, but how he likes it. You _know_ these things.

You nod. "Yes, I remember watching it with my mother. We sat on the sofa and I drank lemonade and we watched the wedding. I remember her beautiful wedding dress and my mother said that one…one d –… one day I'd have a wedding like that," you falter, because that memory is bringing back your mum's violet perfume and the itchiness of the sofa on your bare legs and the way she sighed as she saw Diana's beautiful wedding dress.

He takes his hand and wraps it around yours as you try not to cry again. You sniff back your tears and squeeze his hand back. "She said that one day I'd find a prince just like Diana did."

You don't tell Ron the rest of the story. You don't tell him that for years after you didn't believe what your mother said, because Diana's story was magical and you didn't believe in magic. You don't tell Ron that you refused to dream of it, because that sort of thing didn't happen to girls with bushy hair and big front teeth and the nickname Bossy-Little-Know-It-All.

You don't tell Ron that you're starting to change your mind; you're starting to think that maybe magical stories like that _do_ happen, you're starting to think that maybe – just maybe – it's happening to you.


	9. IX

IX.

It's the first time she's woken up in weeks where she hasn't been startled out of dreams by Harry roughly shaking her shoulder, announcing in an exhausted whisper that it's her turn. It's the first time she's woken up in weeks where she hasn't had to tip toe out of the tent so as not to wake Harry, who's already asleep, sometimes with his glasses and clothes on. It's the first time she's woken up in weeks where she hasn't felt tired, because she's had more than three hours of uninterrupted sleep.

And at first she can't figure out why. She sits up in bed, pushing hair out of her face and realizes that the tent is full of sunlight, even though she was due to switch with Harry at five that morning. By the strength of the sun seeping through the canvas of the tent, she knows that it's well past five.

She stumbles out of bed ungracefully, still slightly disoriented. The bunk above hers is occupied by Harry who is burrowed beneath layers of blankets. She looks to the mouth of the tent, where another huddled form is sitting at the opening, hunched over against the cold, and she puts it all together. She stomps out of the tent, arms folded, ready for a fight.

"What are you doing?" she asks Ron, who has three blankets draped over his shoulder, a jam jar flame clenched tight in his hands. He startles slightly from the unexpectedness of her voice and turns to look up at her, squinting slightly from the light. But she can tell that he's still a bit scared of her, because he jumps to his feet and then quickly avoids eye contact.

"I told Harry not to wake you," he says, looking down at the forest floor and playing with a rock on the ground with his toe.

"Why?" she asks, using that harsh, accusatory voice. She hopes that it's strong enough to keep away all of the other emotions she feels as she stares at him, his hair ruffled from the wind and his eyes dark with unspoken apologies.

"You looked tired last night so I…so I told him to go to bed and I'd take your shift," he says, with a half glance at her to gauge her reaction.

She's lost for words. She supposes that she should thank him, because she _did_ need the sleep, but it's stuck somewhere between her heart and her lips. So instead she protects herself: protects herself from making up with him, from desperately caving and hugging him and telling the truth; that even though she's hurt and raw she's glad that he's back.

She sits down in his spot and he moves over to accommodate her. She expects him to leave, to go back in the tent and sleep. Judging by the shadows under his eyes, he needs the sleep too. But he doesn't. He sits down next to her, their shoulders nearly touching.

"This doesn't change a thing," she tells him stubbornly.

Out of the corner of her eye she thinks she sees him struggling not to smile.


	10. X

X.

He's not asleep, though he knows that they both think he is. Actually, he's been awake for about ten minutes, watching them through his eyelashes, hoping that they won't realize that he's awake, and at the same time desperately wishing that _she_ will realize that he's been listening for a while now. He shudders uncomfortably; the locket is pressed against his chest, the cold burning his skin, but he can't move it without drawing attention to himself. Also, he's lying on his good arm, and he can't use the arm in the sling to move the locket out of the way.

They're sitting at the kitchen table, which is slightly blocked from view by the sofa, but he can make out the top of Harry's head and a corner of Hermione's face. They're bending over something, probably a map, and speaking in hushed voices. He _knows_ they're only looking for the next place to go and speaking softly so as to not wake him, but a voice in his ear whispers what was in the back of his head all along: they're sitting too close; they're saying things they don't want him to hear.

He watches as she smiles at something he says. A strange feeling rushes up inside him, consuming him so fully that for a moment he forgets where he is.

_They don't need you here, they're bringing you along so they don't have to give you awkward excuses. Look at the two of them, planning: they don't need you here when they make decisions, they don't need you here at all. And look at the way she's looking at him now. She doesn't fancy you, she's _never_ fancied you, and spending all that time with him is making it so obvious how incompetent, how inferior you are to him. You're an _idiot_ for thinking that she could love you back. You don't deserve someone like her, what do you have to give her, what do you have that she could possibly want? How could you possibly think that she would ever be interested in someone like you? You should just leave; it will probably be doing them a favor. They're probably hoping that you'll realize how useless you are and just leave before they ask you to. And with you gone, they won't have to hide the way they feel about each other and they won't have to whisper things and they can finally get together and…_

"NO!" he shouts, out loud, because an image of his two best friends kissing suddenly fills his mind. He forgets that he's pretending to be asleep; there's a pain in his chest from the thought of the two of them _like that_ that blocks out everything else.

The two look over at him, both with worried yet understanding looks on their faces: they've all had nightmares. He doesn't correct their interpretation. Hermione gets up from the table and sits on the edge of his bed, carefully tending to his arm and whispering soothing words to him.

He's adjusts the locket so that it doesn't touch his bare skin and misses the look of tender affection she gives him.


	11. XI and XII

XI.

On nights when it's his turn to keep watch outside the tent, he likes to play a little game with himself to make the long, cold hours pass quickly and to make the dark seem not as deep and threatening. The game always ends the same way, but on certain nights it's met with different attitudes: on most nights it ends with a feeling of hope, on nights when he's wearing the locket it ends in irony, anger, and bitterness.

In this game, he's painfully optimistic, because it's in his mind and it doesn't count for anything, and he needs _something_ that's good. In his game, he likes to think about what's going to happen when all of this is over and they win the war; what he'll do and what he'll say to people.

First, he'll tell Hermione how he feels about her. In this game she always feels the same way as him. Then he'll become an Auror with Harry and make loads of money so that he'll never have to worry about food or clothes again, and so he can buy nice things for Hermione, because she'll be his girlfriend. And he'll let his mother hug him and he won't fight with her about keeping his room tidy. And he'll tell his father that he'd actually like to learn about how brakes work, and he wouldn't mind helping him put together Sirius's bike. He'll tell Fred and George to quit taking the mickey because he always thought it was unfair how he got to be the brunt of most of their jokes. He'll tell Percy what an arse he is and they never really needed him anyway. He'll punch Draco Malfoy in the face for being a prick to Hermione and to him and to his family and to his parents. Maybe he'll punch Malfoy twice. And while he's at it he'll punch Viktor Krum and Cormac McLaggen as well. And then after a few years he'll ask Hermione to marry him – in this game she _always_ says yes – and they'll get married and have a nice house and maybe children, but theirs won't be anything like his childhood because there (hopefully) won't be that many children, and even if there were, none of them would ever have to wear hand-me-down maroon jumpers.

He doesn't get much farther than that because it's strange to think of himself as much older than Bill's age, and Bill is twenty-eight. But he hopes that everything after that will be okay too.

XII.

On nights when it's her turn to keep watch outside the tent, she likes to play a little game with herself when the lines in her books start to blur together and it's too cold for her to focus or even care about what's written in front of her.

In this game, she's painfully optimistic, because it's in her mind and it doesn't count for anything, and she needs _something_ that's good. In her game, she likes to think about what's going to happen when all of this is over and they win the war; what she'll do and what she'll say to people.

First, she'll tell Ron how she feels about him, or he'll tell her how he feels about her. In her game he always confesses that he's fancied her for years, just like her. Then she'll go to Australia and bring back her parents, who are safe and healthy and understand what she had to do to protect them and don't resent her at all. Then maybe – if it were possible – she'll go back to school to get her qualifications because she needs to finish her education. Then she'll go into the Ministry and write laws so that house elves won't live in such terrible conditions, and she'll make a difference in the world. And then after a few years – once they both had established careers – Ron will ask her to marry him and of course she'll say yes, and they'll have a lovely wedding and have a beautiful home and have ginger children who love books and chess and maybe Quidditch, but their childhoods won't be anything like her childhood because it won't be as quiet and lonely, with only books for company.

She doesn't get much farther than that because sometimes it seems dangerous to hope for so many things.


	12. XIII

XIII.

Hermione stumbled out of bed, wiping away the last bits of a sleepless night from her eyes. She never slept well when she was wearing the locket; terrible things wove in and out of her dreams, causing her to wake up with her heart pounding and her body covered in a cold sweat. She tugged angrily at the chain around her neck, which was just as cold as when she had taken it from Harry a few hours earlier; the metal seemed unable to retain any heat, which made it even more uncomfortable to wear to bed.

She paused in front of the tiny mirror that was propped up on the table in the sitting area. There wasn't a full length mirror in the tent; all they had was a small hand mirror where they could see only fractions of themselves if they stood at different angles. Hermione found it slightly disconcerting that she wasn't able to see all of her body at once.

Not that there was much to look at in the mirror. Her eyes were dark from sleeplessness and shadowed slightly, which stood out sharply against very white skin and pale lips. Framing all of this was hair, or at least a bit of it, since all of her hair did not fit in the tiny circle of mirror. From what she could see, she knew it was tangled and all over the place. She raked her fingers through it, but it only made it look more looked terrible, and for a moment she was glad she could only see a part of herself. Giving up all together, she abandoned her reflection and went into the kitchen for breakfast, hoping to find it vacant.

But Ron was sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through her copy of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard _with a slightly nostalgic look on his face; there was a steaming mug of tea in his hand and another in a seat next to him, which she knew was for her. She mentally examined the option of running out of the kitchen before he could see her, but she didnt have enough time, he looked up from her book, and the two of them froze. She stood in horror as she watched him take in every part of her.

He saw her messy hair, hair that he had dreamed of running his fingers through it since he was thirteen. He saw her dark eyes, eyes that were so full of everything he loved about her: intelligence, passion, strength, beauty, bravery. He saw her paled skin, skin that he wanted to touch, just to see if it was as perfect as it looked. He saw her lips, lips he wanted to kiss so badly that sometimes he had to physically restrain himself by leaving the room.

He saw everything she saw, but in a completely different way.

"You're beautiful," he blurted out, without realizing what he had said until it was out of his mouth. Hermione's mouth dropped open, blushing furiously, though it was nothing compared to Ron's reddening cheeks and ears. He stood up abruptly, knocking over his chair, and practically ran from the room, muttering something incomprehensible.

Hermione was left alone in the kitchen, her heart racing at what he had said. She touched her cheeks self-consciously as a wide smile spread across her face.


	13. XIV

XIV.

You wake up, and the slightly raised form of her body is not in the bed as you expect it to be. Immediately, a million thoughts run through your mind, firing so fast and so early in the morning that it makes you feel slightly dizzy. _She's hurt. She needs help. You lost her_. You sit up and look wildly around the tent, searching for that face that you know so well, the features that invoke such wild emotions that sometimes you even surprise yourself, that you could feel that way and feel so much at once.

The tent is empty so you go outside. Harry's sitting watch, wrapped in blankets so that the only discernable part of his body is a shaggy head of hair and a pair of glasses in front of green eyes. He takes one look at your worried expression and points a finger layered with two pairs of gloves in a direction to the left of the tent. You can make her out between the trees, which have lost their leaves and adopted a heavy coating of blindingly white snow.

"Thanks," you say, though you feel slightly hesitant, now that you know she's okay. You've only been back a few weeks; she's started to ease up on the silent treatment and the evil glares aren't as menacing as they once were, but you're still not sure if she's forgiven you enough to initiate a conversation.

"Go, mate. I think she needs you," Harry says in a muffled voice, and you grit your teeth and walk up to her. You know you've made the right decision when you see her shoulders shaking. At least she doesn't try and hide the fact that she's been crying when you stand next to her.

Apparently she has more important things on her mind than icing you out. With another sob, she says into the snowy trees, "It's my dad's birthday today," and her voice cracks a little and it's so sad that you want to hug her, take away all of the horrible things she's feeling. You'd feel them for her, you'd feel all of it for put your arms around her and she doesn't yell at you or shake you off.

"Is it h-horrible that - that s-sometimes I wish they _knew_? That sometimes I hope that my ch-charms weren't strong enough, and th-they know s-somewhere that they're _m-meant _to have a d-daughter? Is it b-bad that s-sometimes I wish they'd f-feel empty w-without m-me in their n-new lives? D-does that m-make me a h-horrible p-person?" she asks, her face soaked with tears, their paths etched on her face. You feel something catch in the back of your throat.

"No," you say firmly. "No, it doesn't make you a horrible person at all. It makes you _human_," you say, wondering where that came from, and why, all of the sudden, you seem to have the right thing to say.

Maybe she's realizing it too, because she nods and then tries - and fails - to smile. You gather her more firmly in your arms, and she cries into your shirt until it's practically soaked through, and you don't mind at all. You stand together like that for a while, as she cries for her parents who don't know her. And you hate the world that has made a daughter ashamed of hoping her parents remember her.


	14. XV

XV.

She's never thought about how perfect the order of their names is until after one of them is missing. And then it suddenly seems to make absolute sense. It was staring at her all along. Why hadn't she seen it before?

Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Always.

Harry came first, of course. Harry always came first, and not in a way that she resented (most of the time). Harry was the most important, after all. He came first because when the three of them entered a room, he was the one eyes fell on first. It wasn't done thoughtfully, it was instinct. He was Harry. He was first.

And she was last. Sometimes, when she was feeling depressed, she thought it was because she had come latest in terms of friendship, and her name was tagged onto two names that had already been joined together. Logically, she thought that her name was last because her name is the longest, and the most difficult to pronounce. Maybe it fell easier when it was preceeded by two short, easy names. She hopes she isn't last because she's the least important.

And Ron. He's always in the middle. Now she knows why, and it's too late. He's in the middle because he holds them together. Without him they're Harry. And Hermione. Disconnected, disjointed, not quite flowing together. She knows that he thinks he's just sandwiched between two important names, but it's not like that at all. She wishes he could see that.

He was the important one all along. Because he held them together. He joined the two of them with his jokes, which could make both of them laugh even when in the foulest of moods. He was the one who could keep the two of them from retreating into their own minds. And now he's gone. It turned out it wasn't The Chosen One, or The Girl Who Knew All The Answers In Lessons; neither of them kept the three of them together. It was him: The Youngest Weasley Son, The Boy Who Could Play A Good Game of Chess, That Ginger Kid Standing Next To The Famous Harry Potter

Harry and Hermione.

It didn't work, it didn't fit. They needed him too.


	15. XVI

XVI.

Running blindly into danger was easy. When you did not know what was up ahead, what horror lurked in the darkness, acting was easy. With only the wildest concoctions of your imagination to face, what you were running into didn't seem as bad. It didn't take bravery, really, because you didn't have to be brave to face the unkown; you just had to be daring and a bit reckless. Ron would gladly take wandering through a forest full of man-eating spiders, jumping through trapdoors, and tunnels hidden by bathroom sinks compared to this.

Because _this_, he thought, as he shouldered his bag and walked out of Shell Cottage, his eyes never leaving that tiny, curious ball of light, _this _was what required the most amount of courage. When you knew exactly what was up ahead; when you walked willingly into what you feared. That was what took strength.

He was about to see them again: the two friends he had abandoned when they needed him most. One, the girl he loved, and the other the boy whom he envied. And now - he was nearly positive - after leaving the two of them for weeks all alone, they would be together.

Weeks ago, the thought of it, of the two of them together, _like that_, had made him leave them. He had been in love with her for years, and now his best friend, the one who had everything, was about to add just another thing that he had that Ron didn't: her. And it mattered the most to him. He could cast aside fame and money and all of his jealousy of Harry for her. But he had been too late, and Harry got there first. And the thought of his two best friends together had made him run away.

But when he heard her name come out of his pocket, he had realized something. He would always love her. That would never change. No matter what happened or what she did, he would love her. And maybe she loved Harry. Maybe she didn't love Ron as he loved her. And he could live with that. Because when you loved someone, you loved them no matter what happens, even if they love your best friend. If she didn't love him back...fine. He would find a way to cope with it. Because more than anything else, he wants her to be happy. Even if his own heart is broken in the process.

And as the ball of light floated closer and closer to him, he knew exactly what was up ahead. He knew that he would find his two best friends together in a way that made his heart shatter every time he thought about it. He knew that she might never love him in the way he loved her. He knew that he somehow had to find a way to live with this. He knew all of this, and he was going to face it anyway.

It was the bravest thing he had ever done.


	16. XVII

XVII.

For a while, it was easy for her to pretend that he hadn't left. For a while she found it comforting to entertain herself with the idea that he was still here. It wasn't entirely hard to do; not when so much of him remained behind.

She would find ginger hairs in the bathroom sink, from where he had brushed hair that desperately needed to be cut. She would find his teacups – which he seemed incapable of washing or returning to the kitchen – randomly placed around the tent where he had discarded and then forgotten about them. One evening she found a sock of his at the bottom of her bag. One morning she woke up and swore she smelled _him,_ a curious combination of things she couldn't describe.

But she couldn't pretend forever. The hair was washed down the drain. The teacups were cleaned and returned to their proper place in the kitchen cabinet. The lone sock turned out to be Harry's. The only smell in the tent was of rain and growing desperation.

She watched helplessly as all around her, he slowly started to disappear. And the only place she could find evidence of him was in the center of her heart. So she held onto that until she realized that he had broken it and took all the pieces with him.


	17. XVIII

XVIII.

The morning he came back, Hermione was able to keep it in for the entire day. She could feel it building up in the back of her throat, behind her eyes, in her chest. But she refused to let her face crack, refused to let show what was expanding behind her ribcage.

Finally, after hours of clenched fists and avoided eye contact, she allowed herself to let it go. A little.

She locked herself in the bathroom and turned on the tap to the shower. Water beat down loudly, angrily, on the porcelain of the tub. The sound of the running water would block out all other sounds, she knew. She could have used one of the Prince's charms, but she refused, and was proud of that fact, considering what Snape was. Besides, there was something wonderfully comforting about the steady, heavy beat of the water.

It wasn't as easy as she thought it would be. When she had been so focused, so determined to keep it all away from him, from both of them, she found that after all this time, she had buried everything deep down. It was hard to get it back. She closed her eyes, felt the pressure behind them, in her chest, in her throat, felt all of it. And then something amazing happened.

She laughed.

It felt strange at first. She hadn't had many things to laugh about for a long time, though she didn't know that she had forgotten how. It felt slightly foreign on her face.

But then she let it consume her, felt the weight behind her eyes, her chest, her _body_ lift as she laughed. She laughed harder than she ever had in her very young and very old eighteen years of life. She felt tears gather in the corners of her eyes but didn't hide them or wipe them away because these were tears of _happiness_, and they were worth more than gold. So she laughed until her mouth and jaw hurt; until she was doubled over, because she couldn't catch her breath; until she was sure she was louder than the water running beside her, steaming the mirror and warming the frozen pieces of her heart. She laughed until she knew all of these things, and then she laughed more.

Because here, in their tiny tent in a snowy forest, with Danger as their fourth companion and Death as their fifth, with their impossible task set before them, she felt happy. Well, she felt a piece of happiness, which was more than she ever dreamed of. Because he was back. He was back and he was alive and he was mostly whole and he was _sorry_. She didn't think she'd ever see him again, but he was here. He was here! And she was _angry_, God was she angry, but the anger felt wonderful because it was real and _he_ was real, and for the first time she thought something else – an emotion she kept at bay for fear of being too optimistic – might be real too.

Hope.

So she laughed. She laughed because she remembered how: she remembered what this felt like, what happiness felt like. She laughed because these things weren't gone forever. Most of all she laughed for Ron. She laughed for whatever kind of magic had brought him back to them, back to her. She laughed for the hope she had found in his return. Her hope for the two of them, for the three of them, and for everyone she loved. She laughed until she had no breath left and the room was so steamy that she could hardly see her own hands.

And on the other side of the door, leaning anxiously against the canvas wall, Ron laughed too.


	18. XIX

XIX.

They had all developed odd quirks to keep themselves sane from the endless days and nights spent in the tent. They were mundane things, actions that were barely given a second thought on any normal occasion, though in a situation like this, kept the line between sanity and insanity a bearable distance apart. It was odd how some things thought little of now meant more than practically anything.

It was the simplicity of it that they all needed. Something controllable that needed little thought, though routinely needed to be done. They were facing such large, powerful, abstract opponents, things they could barely wrap their minds around. And though it was highly illogical, and couldn't be compared to fighting Death Eaters of finding Horcruxes, it was comforting to know that at least there were was something that they could handle. A simple task that could be started and finished, unlike so many others they would have to come to terms to.

Ron, for example, washed the dishes. After every meal he would stand by the rusted sink in the kitchen that spurted out water unevenly and unpredictably changed temperatures, washing the dishes. He was very methodical about it: silverware fist, plates and bowls second, and glasses or teacups last. By the time he got to glasses, steam usually rose to the surface, and Hermione had to put impervious charms on his hands so he wouldn't burn them. But even so, he spent so much time with his hands in the water that they had grown dry and cracked, and Hermione had lent him her hand lotion, on the condition that she wouldn't tell Harry he was using it.

Usually, when Ron washed the dishes Hermione sat on the counter next to the sink and dried them. They would develop a perfect, comforting rhythm that sometimes glitched when Ron missed a spot or Hermione got hung up drying every inch of a teacup, but it was perfect anyway. Mostly, they stood and sat in silence, exchanging some words but usually disappearing into their own minds. Washing the dishes was Ron's escape and she didn't want to intrude. Sometimes she hummed and he pretended not to hear, and he would watch her and she would pretend not to notice. Sometimes it was the other way around.

Since he had come back, she hadn't resumed her position on the counter next to the sink, a damp towel in her hand. He had picked up his routine of washing dishes, though now he dried them with magic. One night when she was feeling spiteful, she collected the dishes herself and washed them with magic, though afterwards she felt awful. The truth was, she missed her position on the counter, the edge of it pressing uncomfortably into her legs, her back sore from resting on the cabinet.

The night after their close escape from the Lovegood's house, she stood anxiously in the doorway as Ron collected the plates from their dinner of bread and soup Harry had stolen from a market in the town up the hill from where they had pitched their tent. She leaned against the doorframe, playing with her hands and feeling her heart jump into her throat as she watched his back as he turned on the water and picked up her fork. She wanted to so badly but... After wrestling with herself for the better part of five minutes, she finally gathered the courage to just ask.

"Do you need a hand with those?" she asked quietly, and Ron turned around, startled. When he saw her standing there, her eyes wide, he grinned broadly. At the sight of his smile, her heart melted and her heart beat even faster, in a wonderfully familiar way.

"Sure, that would be great," he said, and she smiled too. She practically skipped to her spot on the counter, hopping up and taking the dishtowel. For the next half hour they washed and dried the dishes without exchanging a single word, though the silence between them was so comfortable, Hermione didn't mind at all. She hummed an old song under her breath, and Ron shot her long glances from under his even longer fringe, and for a moment, everything was right in the world.

It was with regret shared by both of them that Ron turned off the tap, having cleaned the last teacup for more than ten minutes. She, equally keen on dragging out this moment for as long as possible, spent another five minutes making sure it was absolutely dry before placing it in the cabinet by her left elbow.

"Have you got any laundry to fold? I can sit with you." Ron asked, as Hermione jumped gracefully off of the counter. She smiled slowly at him. Laundry was her quirk that kept her sane, like washing the dishes for Ron. She enjoyed the fact that she could quite simply turn every article of clothing into a perfect square or rectangle. It was simple and easy and at the same time manageable and satisfying and made her feel shamelessly like she had accomplished something. Usually Ron kept her company as she folded the laundry, just as she kept him company by drying the dishes. She saw right through what he was trying to do.

Her smile widened. "That would be nice," she said, and she meant every word. She turned to leave the kitchen, flicking her wand at the lamp hanging from the ceiling to extinguish it. But as she was heading to the warmly lit living room, she felt something brush her wrist and she turned around, looking at Ron, who was standing stiffly in the dim kitchen, his eyes wide and his hand enclosed around her wrist.

"Hermione..." he said, his voice low and gravelly, and she knew immediately what he was going to say. She wondered if had been thinking about it as they had washed dishes, if he had been wanting to say it since he had returned. And all of the sudden, she didn't want him to say anything.

She stood on her toes and kissed him softly on the cheek. "I know," she whispered, and Ron made an odd noise as his ears turned red. "I know," she repeated, standing straight again, and wriggling her hand so that he was holding it, not her wrist. She smiled shyly at him, and he smiled back.


End file.
